Woman arraigned in alleged arson in Webster

A woman upset that her boyfriend had left her threatened to set fire to the Goddard Street building he was in just hours before it was reported ablaze the morning of May 31, investigators alleged.

Angela J. Knight, 43, of 40 Lake St., Apt. 3, pleaded not guilty to arson and five counts of threatening to commit a crime Friday in Dudley District Court.

Ms. Knight, who lives less than 100 feet from the destroyed and razed building, was arrested and brought to court on two warrants.

She was ordered held on $25,000 bail for the arson case and $500 for allegedly threatening to stab everyone inside and kill their families and burn down the house, according to investigators.

Two tenants were forced to jump from the second floor. A man suffered serious injuries, including a broken pelvis, a police report said.

Ms. Knight’s neighbor said she “wanted to do the right thing” when she provided police with evidence against Ms. Knight, the report said.

The morning of the fire, an allegedly intoxicated Ms. Knight told the neighbor she needed to talk because her boyfriend had left her again, the witness told police.

The neighbor alleged Ms. Knight said she wanted to kill her boyfriend.

Ms. Knight said her boyfriend had been staying at the Goddard Street apartment and had smoked crack with a pregnant woman there. Ms. Knight told her neighbor she believed her boyfriend might be the father of the woman’s baby, the report said. Ms. Knight allegedly said she was going to set the couch on fire.

The neighbor said she tried to calm Ms. Knight and that she left Ms. Knight’s apartment about midnight, but saw Ms. Knight exit the back stairs and walk toward Goddard Street.

Two hours later, the neighbor, while on her back porch smoking a cigarette, saw Ms. Knight on Goddard Street.

Ms. Knight told police she didn’t care where her boyfriend had been, because she was having a sexual relationship with another man, the report said.

State Trooper Daniel Jones of the State Fire Marshal’s Office and police Detective Gordon D. Wentworth ruled the fire’s cause “incendiary in nature.” The most likely origin was a couch at the rear of the building, the investigators said.